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United States President Donald Trump announced an additional 100 per cent tariff on China on Friday and threatened to cancel a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, reigniting his trade war with Beijing in a row over export curbs on rare earth minerals.
Trump said the extra levies, plus US export controls on “any and all critical software”, would come into effect from 1 November in retaliation for what he called Beijing’s “extraordinarily aggressive” moves.
“It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” he said on Truth Social.
China has imposed retaliatory tariffs at a rate of 10 percent.
Trump had threatened the tariffs hours earlier in a lengthy surprise post on his Truth Social network that said China had sent letters to countries around the world detailing export controls on rare earth minerals.
China dominates global production and processing of rare earth elements, which are critical to manufacturing everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to military hardware and renewable energy technology.
“There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,'” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
The US president called into question his plans to meet Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit later this month, which was to be their first encounter since Trump returned to power in January.
“I had planned to meet with President Xi in South Korea during the APEC summit in two weeks; however, it now appears there is no point,” he mentioned.
Trump later told reporters in the Oval Office that he hadn’t cancelled the meeting.
“I haven’t cancelled, but I don’t know that we’re going to have it. But I’m going to be there regardless, so I would assume we might have it,” he said.
The Chinese government has yet to respond.
‘Lying in wait’
The US president said he did not understand why China was choosing to act now. “Some very strange things are happening in China! They are becoming very hostile,” he said.
Trump said other countries had contacted the United States expressing anger over China’s “great Trade hostility, which came out of nowhere.”
“Dependent on what China says about the hostile ‘order’ that they have just put out, I will be forced, as President of the United States of America, to financially counter their move,” Trump said.
His outburst comes just weeks after he had spoken of the importance of meeting Xi at the APEC summit and revealed that he would travel to China next year.
Washington and Beijing engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff war earlier this year that threatened to effectively halt trade between the world’s two largest economies.
Both sides eventually agreed to de-escalate tensions but the truce has been shaky.
